Alliances in Anarchic International Systems
- Creators
- Niou, Emerson M. S.
- Ordeshook, Peter C.
Abstract
Alliances play a central role in international relations theory. However, aside from applications of traditional cooperative game theory that ignore the issue of enforcement in anarchic systems, or interpretations of the repeated Prisoners' Dilemma in the attempt to understand the source of cooperation in such systems, we have little theory on which to base predictions about alliance formation. This essay, then, builds on an n-country, non-cooperative, game-theoretic model of conflict in anarchic systems in order to furnish a theoretical basis for such predictions. Defining an alliance as a collection of countries that jointly abide by "collective security strategies" with respect to each other but not with respect to members outside of the alliance, we establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for an alliance system to be stable. In addition, we show that not all winning or minimal winning coalitions can form alliances, that alliances among smaller states can be stable, that bipolar alliance structures do not exhaust the set of stable structures, and that only specific countries can play the role of balancer.
Additional Information
This research was supported by the NSF Grant SES-8822308 to Duke University and the NSF Grant SES-8922262 to the California Institute of Technology. Published as Niou, Emerson MS, and Peter C. Ordeshook. "Alliances in anarchic international systems." International Studies Quarterly 38, no. 2 (1994): 167-191.Attached Files
Submitted - sswp761.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 81028
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20170831-134520974
- SES-8822308
- NSF
- SES-8922262
- NSF
- Created
-
2017-08-31Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2019-10-03Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Social Science Working Papers
- Series Name
- Social Science Working Paper
- Series Volume or Issue Number
- 761